


Not on Fire, but Burning

by JessicaPendragon



Series: Canon Keela Lavellan [38]
Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:32:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5821507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JessicaPendragon/pseuds/JessicaPendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is inevitable, the soul reason for his placement so close to her side, although certainly not the only reason he stays the closer they’ve become. Still, after months of peace and smiles warming with every day passed, it is a surprise when the assassins come for her again. </p><p>His mistake. Should’ve been him to pay the price.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://jessicapendragon.tumblr.com/post/138053109189/not-on-fire-but-burning">Tumblr Link</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Not on Fire, but Burning

It is inevitable, the soul reason for his placement so close to her side, although certainly not the only reason he stays the closer they’ve become. Still, after months of peace and smiles warming with every day passed, it is a surprise when the assassins come for her again. 

His mistake. Should’ve been him to pay the price.

He is down by the stream filling their canteens when he feels a brush of magic and it is this one thing that saves him. Had they been smart, they would have sent a silent rogue after him instead, but he has spent his whole life fighting against mages. For a moment he thinks it might be Keela, mischievous and clever Keela sneaking up on him for a prank, but the feel of it is all wrong.

He twists away before the lightning cracks down and burns the spot he once occupied. A dagger flies blind from his fingers, hopefully enough of a distraction to tear free his weapons, and there is just enough time to raise shield before electricity races up and over. Rylen flashes forward across the ground in a rush of seasoned steel and steeled determination. Normally he would wait, learn more of his opponent before barreling straight into the devil’s maw, but there is no time. Every second spent here could be another drop of her blood spilled. He suffers for it as a stray bolt slices through his arm but he feels nothing except the roar of battle and this frantic need to reach her.

The mage tries again but Rylen has adapted, pivots away and brings down a heavy purge that knocks the wind from his opponent right before he lashes out and knocks their head off their shoulders.

There is no lingering in the glory of the kill. He races up the hill, following the flashes of fire and ice, the clash of metal against magic, and finds Keela surrounded. A small part of his brain is offended- they sent only one after him while five attack her, but the thought is lost somewhere between the clang of his shield against an unsuspecting back and the thrust of his sword through their chest.

Four more to go.

Some unspoken word passes between the enemy. Three turn to face him while the largest, a heavy warrior, swings a giant hammer down onto Keela’s barrier. Rylen watches pieces of it break off and disappear, catches her gaze running red from a cut above her forehead for a second before the assassins move in. There is no shouting or flying curses, only the labored breath of combat, the strike of swords and sizzling magic. He is quick to take out the archer, grappling them close and slamming the edge of his sharp shield into their throat only leaving him a mage and warrior to contend with. They are skilled, working in tangent, pressing him back further and further from Keela, but he knows he can defeat them if he has just enough time.

A scream splits the air and his attention, something pained and angry and _hers,_ and all his years of service and training abandon him to hear it. He drops his cover too far and takes the brunt of an icy blast against his torso that sends him to the ground. There is a rush of impressions, a shout-his or something else’s he can’t tell, silver and blue, fire and sulfur and something warm against his cheek, and then everything is too quiet.

He blinks, takes a breath, and finds Keela’s honeyed eyes gazing down at him. “Can you stand? There’s still-”

And he sees it, a flash of mail, and can only open his mouth with a warning grunt before the warrior descends. Keela spins, blocking the shield with a quick motion of her staff, but there is nothing left to stop the sword from finding its mark. Rylen watches through the slow torture and clarity of a moment that cannot be forgotten as it pierces her armor and punches triumphant through her side.

The noise she makes, surprise and agony mixing together, scratches inside his skull and gives him enough of a shock to stop the enemy from finishing the job. There is red on the tip of a sword and then all he sees is red, an anger burning away thought, as he leaps up. He feels hard plating and soft flesh beneath his hands, hears the crunch of grass and bones, but sees nothing but this blind rage fueled by the fear of losing her.

“ _Rylen!_ ”

Her voice breaks through his haze and he finds himself atop the fallen foe, a large, bloody rock in his hands and the mess of his making spreading below. His name comes again, quieter and breathless this time, and he scrambles up to find her. Keela kneels on the ground, a hand clutching over the wound in her abdomen, skin gone pale from the pain and life spilling between the cracks in her fingers.

“I can’t…not a healer. The camp.”

With a quick nod he picks her up, wincing as she cries out, worrying as she grows silent the closer they come to the destination, but he doesn’t stop running until they pry her from his blood stained hands and whisk her away. Then there is nothing but time.

He waits and waits, sometimes standing or sitting, rarely sleeping, constantly shrugging off the healers as they plead to tend to his wounds as well, and only gives in a day later when they assure him that she will live. No one is allowed entry just yet, so for the next couple days he busies himself with cleaning away the grime and blood coating his skin and armor, writing his report in detail, making their camp impenetrable from any further attacks, stalking outside her tent and trying to catch a glimpse inside every time someone enters or exit.

Rylen cannot be sure how it happens - if the mages grow tired of his constant hovering or Keela orders them to allow it, but either way on the fourth day he finds himself alone with her once again. She sits atop a pile of pillows and blankets, dressed in modest undergarments and wrapped in vibrant, white linen without stain. As he approaches he can see there are smudges beneath her eyes, a cut healing on her head, but she is alive. She will live.

Even as this weight lifts from his shoulders, he finds himself plummeting before her, brought low by the sudden surge of emotions pulling at him. It is like the adrenaline has finally worn off and he can feel every scrape and cut, every way she has marked him. He is filled with regret and relief, but it is all drowning beneath a steady love that they have both been denying for too long. As he bows between her legs, kisses the exposed skin of her thigh, he knows he can’t, he won’t, deny it any longer.

“Keela,” he whispers. Fingers tremble as he maps his touch up her hip, across the stiff fabric of her bandage, over her chest and down the length of her arm. When his hand catches hers and brings it to his lips he hears her let out a quivering breath and looks up to find her trying to smile through a sheen growing over her eyes. She has earned his respect, his fealty and loyalty, but that is not why he kneels before her now. Not anymore. “Keela-”

“Don’t. Do not say you’re sorry or it’s your fault. Don’t you dare make me promises either.” She shakes her head and pulls on his arm. “Don’t say anything.”

He moves up, bracketing himself on either side of her body and barely has time to think about it before her lips find his with a fervent impatience. Keela grabs hold of his shirt and urges him closer, bringing him with her as she leans back into the pillows, and he does his best not to put weight upon her healing body as he comes down with her. 

She wants more though, arching up into him and tugging with greater urgency, growling when he refuses to obey. Teeth drag his lip before, eyes set on fire with desire. “I will not break. I have survived worse things.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. 

Rylen moves down against her good side, pressing into her hip and twining their legs together. A hand curls behind her neck while the other runs slowly over her body, seeking the warmth of her skin and seeing it in a new light. Her touch is more adamant, pulling through his hair, slipping buttons from their holdings and pushing back his shirt. When she reaches down to remove her smalls he grabs her hands.

“Calm down.”

She huffs. “I-”

“Give me a moment, would you?” The times they have been together have been by her rules - fast and bright, hard with teeth and nail like it is a battle to be won, a thing to conquer, and he’s surely not complaining about the delicious aches that linger afterwards, but right now he wants to show her something else. Show her something else he has to offer.

Keela relents, looking lost as she places her hands at her sides and fidgets, but her gaze is quick to meet his stare with a challenge nonetheless. He hides his disbelieving smile in the crook of her neck, litters his laughter in gentle pecks against her skin as a hand continues a careful exploration. He follows its course, easing the passing of calloused fingers with soft touches. She begins to relax, melting into the bed beneath them, sighing with lazy pleasure as he unwinds the wrapping around her breasts and lets lips climb to the summit of each. He takes his time exploring before descending, traveling down across her hips as he relieves her from her smalls as well.

He takes a moment to rid himself of his own apparel, hopping with little grace on one foot as he tries to remove his boots, and turns to find her propped on her side watching him with a smirk. “It’s a wonder they dared attack us at all with such displays of agility.” 

Rylen gives her backside a quick smack with little sting. “Hush.”

He chases the sound of her laughter up her side and arm, finally catching it with his mouth as he presses himself along her back and holds her close. Her skin simmers with heat, not the consuming kind but something that hums beneath the surface, pleasant and pleased. It begins to ripple up and down her body as his fingers dip between her legs, crawls into his pores when he lifts her leg over his and slips inside her with slow strokes that stoke the fire within his heart. 

Keela looks back at him, wraps an arm around his head to bring him closer, and he swears there are sparks floating between them and swarming within her eyes. He’s been with a few mages in his time but nothing like this, and he wonders if she feels the same as she watches him, surprisingly quiet as if she is waiting to see what might happen as well. But those deep moans he enjoys so much leave her mouth when he shifts and rolls his fingers just so. She kisses him then, desperately holding on as her body begins to shiver, and they are both swept away in the rhythm and this dazzling heat bursting through veins.

When she comes, it’s with a cloud of smoke curling from her lips.

“Well, that’s never happened before,” he manages to say when they’ve both climbed down and cooled.

“Do you tell all the bonnie lasses that?” she teases, wiping sweat and ash from her brow and glancing at the soot on her fingers with some amazement. “I…I can’t say it’s happened like that before either.” 

As he wraps his arms around her and she lets him, for once snuggling closer when she usually pulls away, it is he that feels amazement to be in this moment, to be the one holding her, to taste the warmth of wood smoke on her lips as he steals another impossible kiss from an impossible woman. And it’s there again, on the tip of his tongue, the desire to burn away the last bridge between them. He needs to say it, has been ready for awhile and not until he saw her painting the grass red did he realize it. 

“Keela, I-”

Her fingers press against his mouth, a storm a panic covering the brilliant skies of her eyes. “Don’t.”

“I’m glad you’re all right,” he says instead, dropping his face into the softness of her hair, and feels the tension in her limbs leak away. He might be ready to say it, but she is not ready to hear it. Not yet, perhaps not ever, but now Rylen knows without a doubt he is willing to wait to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Borrowed the title from a book by Greg Hrbek.


End file.
